Diagnosing Your Pancreatic Cancer

More than 95 percent of pancreatic cancers are adenocarcinomas that line pancreatic ducts.

The stage of your disease indicates how much it has spread. Early stage cancer is a disease limited to one organ. Late stage cancer indicates spread to other organs like to the liver and lung or to the bone. Determining the stage of your cancer will affect your treatment plan. Your Winship care team may use one or more tests and procedures to determine the stage of your pancreatic cancer:

Physical exam and lab tests.

CT scan: computer imaging produces a 3-D picture of the pancreas and surrounding organs that allows a doctor to check for abnormal tissue that may be cancerous.

Ultrasonography: sound waves create images as they bounce off the tissue in the abdomen.

Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP): a technique that uses x-ray evaluation with the aid of an endoscope to facilitate the imaging of dyes that are injected into the ducts of the pancreas.

Percutaneous Transhepatic Cholangiography (PTC): a technique that uses a combination of dye injected into the liver and x-ray imaging in order to see if the bile ducts allow passage of fluid or if they are blocked by a tumor or other condition.

Biopsy: a sample of tissue from the pancreas is examined by a pathologist to look for cancerous cells.

Learn About Cancer

For reliable, in-depth information about cancer symptoms, staging and diagnosis, visit CancerQuest, an educational and outreach program at Emory University.

Your Treatment Options

There are a variety of treatment options for pancreatic cancer depending on the size and location of the tumor, whether the cancer has spread and the overall health of the patient. For some patients, a combination of treatment methods may be used.

Surgery: during surgery for pancreatic cancer, a physician may remove parts of or the entire pancreas. Procedures include:

Whipple Procedure: this method is used when the tumor is in the head of the pancreas. The surgeon removes the head of the pancreas and parts of the bile ducts, small intestines and stomach.

Distal Pancreatectomy: in this procedure, the body and tail of the pancreas are removed in addition to the spleen.

Total Pancreatectomy: the entire pancreas is removed along with part of the small intestine, a portion of the stomach, the common bile duct, the gallbladder, the spleen, and nearby lymph nodes.

Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill or slow the growth of cancer cells. Chemotherapy may be used if surgery is not recommended, before surgery to shrink the size of the tumor, or after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells. In addition to standard targeted therapies, participating in a clinical trial may be an option in certain cases. Clinical trials provide patients access to new medications that are being developed to treat pancreatic cancer.

Radiation: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill cancer cells. Radiation may be used if surgery is not recommended and to destroy cancer cells that remain after surgery.

Targeted therapies: In personalized medicine, researchers identify unique characteristics of tumors that make them vulnerable to known drugs so therapy can be tailored to an individual’s cancer. In targeted therapies, Winship investigators look for new drugs that more selectively target cancer cells with fewer side effects.

Kenneth Cardona MD, FACS

Dr. Cardona is a board certified surgeon and surgical oncologist who specializes in the management of complex gastrointestinal malignancies (such as stomach, pancreas, and liver cancers) and is an expert in the treatment of sarcomas.

Charles A. Staley MD

Dr. Staley leads the surgical oncology team at Winship. He works collaboratively with the Executive Director and Deputy Director to coordinate and enhance clinical services and patient care throughout Winship and its clinical campuses.